i'm sam sacks and tom hartman in washington d.c. here's what's coming up tonight on the big picture. progressives release their budget per merica this weekend unlike paul ryan's budget for the wealthy it's a budget for all ryan said we have a choice to make about our future so what choice should americans be making also the you fight over obamacare heat up in day two of oral arguments before the supreme court or the five right wing justices on the hard court ready to put politics ahead of the health and well being of millions of americans and america is

the only democracy in the western world that still uses the death penalty. when will the u.s. government stop same shinning the deaths of its own citizens. need to know this based on the republican budget released last week we know where congressman paul ryan and his republican party want to drag the nation their view of america's future is one in which more than fifty million americans will lose their health insurance this abled and senior citizens can receive the care they need and impoverished families can receive the food assistance they need all the while the top one percent of americans receive a three trillion dollar tax cut that they don't need. in the coming days paul

ryan's budget for the one percent will come to a vote before the full house of representatives and it will likely pass but we're going to get a vote in the people's house and what will be ignored entirely by speaker of the house john boehner and majority leader eric cantor is the budget for the ninety nine percent a budget for all introduce this week by the house progressive caucus i don't need is the progressive budget achieve a six point eight trillion dollars in deficit reduction as this chart shows which is more than paul ryan's republican budget it does so without hurting middle class americans here's some of the numbers deficit reduction is achieved by making the super rich pay their fair share in taxes again letting the bush tax cuts expire for the talk two percent at the year's end and then creates a new tax bracket for millionaires and billionaires to make them pay rates closer to fifty percent still well below what they paid during the republican administrations of eisenhower nixon ford and even the beginning of the reagan

administration the budget ensures that capital gains are once again taxes ordinary income so people like mitt romney will pay the same tax rate as middle class americans it cuts down high frequency robot trading on wall street by knocking up my mantle speculation tax and it closes corporate tax loopholes and ends corporate welfare in the form of taxpayer subsidies for transnational oil corporations like exxon mobil that are and forty one billion dollars in profits last year yet paid only thirteen percent in taxes a number that would make even mitt romney jealous. and it cuts the bloated defense budget but the progressive budget isn't just about closing the budget deficit it's about investing in the nation's future it i think lose a two point nine trillion dollar investment in our infrastructure to put millions of americans back to work rebuilding our roads modernizing our schools and greening our economy and also keep social security solvent for the future by getting rid of

that cap that allows wealthy americans to pay a lower social security tax than working americans and it creates a public option so that uninsured americans can finally get health insurance without dealing with for profit corporations finally the progressive budget takes on corporate corruption corruption of our government by adopting a system of public financing of elections restoring one person one vote democracy when paul ryan was selling his budget last week he told the american people to have a choice of what kind of future they want now that we know what the progressive alternative is which you choose which are just now joins me from our los angeles studios now is a senior fellow at the campaign for america's future richard welcome good to be here great to have you on so on one side we have the paul ryan plan that ends medicare as we know it it pulls the social safety net out working people and makes

absolutely no substantial investments in our future and then on the other side we have the progressive plan that preserves and strengthens medicare and social security and makes considerable investments in modernizing our infrastructure and economy so isn't this a no brainer. it should be a no brainer i mean the only surprising thing if you look at it from a rational person the only two surprising things about this are that they call the progressive budget progressive margaret because most of its provisions are supported by a majority of republican voters if you look at the polling it's really a very modest proposal when you look at the politics of the country at large as opposed to the politics of the beltway and the second thing is that it's also modest in terms of you know rebuilding infrastructure and you know i could make an argument for two three trillion dollars in infrastructure spending it doesn't go there and it is a very very reasonable down the middle in the best sense of the word proposal as

opposed to this radical insane proposal being put forward by paul ryan so the amazement is that our dialogue so distorted that it's looked at in any other way that well i mean then again i think there was a poll done a few months ago that says progressive is the most positively identified political term in america right now and you're right if you take these issues one by one they have overwhelming support among the american people but let's talk about it in same budget you just mentioned ryan's budget it's a top down approach it's supply side economics once again thirty years of it it's we're going back to it again whereas the progressive budget is a bottom up approach help the middle class invest in the middle class see what happens which one jives more with economic reality as far as how we know we toni's work which one fits the bill here. well that's a no brainer i mean not whole trickle down theory is a fantasy it's always been a fantasy there's no real life example of it working anywhere at any point in

history whereas the kind of budget that this so-called progressive budget represents the c.p.c. budget we know it works because we we've had that kind of budget in this country under dwight d. eisenhower who would be considered an exceptionally radical is a left this nowadays we had a budget where the top part marginal tax rate for the wealthiest people was not forty nine percent as the c.p.c. budget has opposed was ninety one percent and we were building the federal highway system and we were preparing for the space race and gearing up for our g f k's you know a race to the moon so we mill what works in this country and that's what the c.p.c. budget represents and the other is just a flimsy excuse for transferring even more wealth to the war to the very wealthiest among us it's as simple as that right and i don't think any one of the time is calling eisenhower a socialist when tax rates are ninety one percent and he was building all of these building all these things up on the issue of social security. the progressive

budget gets rid of the cap over the next five years which is a prolific hundred six thousand eight hundred dollars any one all of the income below that is tax that you had normal. rates everything else is exempt from that tax. that would keep the program solvent indefinitely why is that not a viable option mainstream option why is why are we instead talking about privatizing it or raising raising the retirement age i mean isn't the tax raising the caregiver the the easiest option we have just a minute. of course it's the easiest option it's the only one that makes sense actuarially it makes up the only reason social security has any long term shortfall at all is because the wealthy are making so much more of our national income than anyone predicted back in the eighty's so of course it's the only thing that makes sense and the only reason why that's not the solution of choice is because a lot of people are spreading money around washington d.c.

like pete peterson the billionaire to make sure it doesn't become the logical solution of choice. richard usko from los angeles thanks a lot for coming on you've got my pleasure when paul ryan unveiled this contract on america tom also weighed in saying that americans have a choice and he gave this rant about what the right choice is moving forward. congressman paul ryan said about his budget it's up to the people to demand a choice between two futures the question is which future would you choose that is the question indeed will we choose a future which the middle class once again can thrive in america like it did for fifty years after the new deal until ronald reagan blew everything up or will we choose paul ryan's plan path to an ion aranda just opiah we should all of the super wealthy can go to good schools and see doctors and everyone else is left with it trickles down from the tables of the rich and we used to have this thing called the

american dream if you worked hard kept your nose clean you could raise your family buy a house in a car take an annual vacation have health coverage safely retire with a comfortable nonstick that american dream was made possible by big government programs government protect their workers right to unionize so those jobs paid well and had decent benefits government trade regulations import tariffs kept good manufacturing jobs here in the us making the middle class possible government provided free public school education to everybody in america and until reagan put bill bennett who wanted to end a department of education and as secretary of education americans with a simple public school education could get into the world's best colleges government was the employer of last resort in the one nine hundred thirty s. and forty's in doubt as the great depression government sent an entire generation of young men through college for free the g.i. bill of the one nine hundred fifty s. provided either free or nearly free college education in states from california to new york before ronald reagan ended it in california's governor and ended it across

the nation as president or at least began the process you know we have a trillion dollars in student debt right now when reagan came into office student debt was pretty much unknown of government provides the legal and financial framework for companies to function with limitations a liability through a corporation if you start a corporation you get all these benefits limitations of liability special tax breaks for corporations. you can deduct your launch you can deduct your. business travel all these kinds of these but and government also provides a stable monetary system and a court system so that you can see that a corporation of business going to judy hate contracts those government is necessary for business to work government provides business with an educated workforce we could roads with rails with the airports for transportation safe streets protected by police and firefighters it's these programs that you know are big government hands just a second here a big government government is twenty one percent of the u.s. g.d.p.

it's fifty four percent of the canadian g.d.p. it's over half of the g.d.p. of every other cut developed country in the world through these programs and it's not big given we say it's arguably has the smallest government of the world but it's through these government programs that the american dream was possible and as these government programs are slashed by people like paul ryan's republicans here in dream is fading in nothingness if you want the american dream back go to cut to go to college or those that have a good job reliable health care live knowing that an accident or sickness won't wipe you out and work to keep these radical reactionary republicans out of government. coming up after the break today was the second day of arguments before the supreme court over the constitutionality of obamacare and things aren't looking too good for the right wing radicals the supreme court willing to put politics ahead of the best interests of the nation and strip americans of what should be a fundamental right.

we just put a picture of me when i was like nine years old i'm going to live through live. lives. i confess and i am a total get a tattoo i loved having had a few seconds and. he was kind of it yesterday. i'm very proud of the all that she sees as a place. to live. lives. you know how sometimes you see a story and it seems so silly you think you understand it and then he glimpse something else you hear see some other part of it and realize everything is ok and

you don't i'm sorry welcome to the big picture. for.

a true news health insurance access for tens of millions of americans may be in jeopardy today in the second day of oral arguments before the supreme court the constitutionality of president obama's health reform law was put into doubt specifically we're talking about the constitutionality of the individual mandate the primary component of obamacare the requires all americans to purchase health insurance the point of the individual mandate is simple in order to open up the health insurance market to millions of americans who might be sick they're not able to get health insurance because they have preexisting conditions or they simply just can't afford it and you also need to bring healthy americans in the poll to control the costs. so not only will private health insurance companies be getting a bunch of sick new customers but also get a bunch of healthy new customers to balance everything out this mandate was

originally a conservative idea it was promoted by the right wing think take the heritage foundation in the early ninety's it was supported by newt gingrich when president clinton was pushing for health reform back in one thousand nine hundred forty and it was the cornerstone of mitt romney's health reform plan in massachusetts take a listen. i am for people individuals exactly like automobile insurance individuals having health insurance and being required to have health insurance my plan says no they can't do that no more free riders people have to take personal responsibility i consider it a conservative plan something i think but once president obama proposed that conservatives declare the mandate unconstitutional and it appears as though the five conservative justices on the supreme court might agree in oral arguments today justice anthony kennedy who many regard as the pivotal swing vote on the court seemed to be skeptical of the obama administration's arguments in defense of the

individual mandate kennedy told solicitor general donald verrilli the man arguing the case on behalf of the obama administration that the government has quote a heavy burden of justification in this case sir we've seen what skeptics such as myself thought would happen and that is that the five right wing justices on the high court would put politics ahead of the best interest of the nation in jeopardize health insurance access for tens of millions of americans. joining me now to discuss this is richard fowler democratic strategist and john mccain well he and a defense attorney and a libertarian richard john both in the show thanks for having me sam and john let's start with you so it looks like. there's a likelihood that the individual mandate might get struck down based on the reports that are coming out today there are something like fifty three million americans who don't have health insurance and if you're not going to give them subsidies to go get health insurance a lot of those people share young people who don't want it there's

a considerable amount of people who do want it but are sick or can't afford it are actually getting subsidies to go get it on their own and require insurance companies to take september and we're not going to do a single payer national health care plan what do we do about this problem. well that's the that's a budget issue that's not a constitutional issue this case this obamacare i should say the affordability act is strictly based on the commerce clause specifically article one section a clause three and the issue before the court in the supreme court is does the federal government have broad powers under the commerce clause to force this law upon people remember if this last passed if i don't want to any part of this law i get penalized now whether you call that a tax or penalty the government is actually reaching into my pocket and pulling out money because i'm not doing what the government says that i should be doing and that is violative of the commerce clause remember the reason why the commerce clause was first inactive in seven hundred seventy six is because the union the

states that were just federalized in other words under the united states government they wanted to have free trade between all the states so in order to avoid the trade barriers this commerce clause is supposed to protect interstate commerce through intrastate commerce with which means all the states have to act in unity now if you read the article it section article one section eight it deals with three things it deals with commerce relating to foreign nations within the states and indian tribes that's it ok all this other mumbo jumbo that you on the news about rights that need to be given is old that's not that i believe poppycock before and poor and old you're actually driven here into the socket in the argument of the justice that even said if we had a national payer system this would be an issue you know that's an alternative you guys could look at i mean i'm asking you and forget about the legal stuff there's forty thousand americans who die every year because they don't have access to health insurance in the wealthiest nation on the planet what do we do about that get a war stop stop this nonsense war on the country save your money slash the military

budget by fifty percent bring our troops home and use that money to pay for homeless people to pay for health care that's right think she's supporting national payer system. i do not i support an individual rights system where individuals choose what they want to do based on their needs read what we have already established they can't really judge to know people who have paid for their needs on this thread this is an order this is pretty simple sam i think what john fails to realize is that social security and medicare which are both where the government takes money out of your pockets even though you don't want them to you are just as it's all justified under the commerce clause if we if the courts tonight are in a couple of open mics having once rule that obamacare is unconstitutional that means that god forbid that mitt romney because president ited states his health care plan will also be in concert it was requires so he allows you to buy across state borders of the internet interstate trade which is wrong the end of the day what it wos down to sam is that everybody is part of the health care market that is where the commerce clause come in you go to that you go to the hospital twice when

you're born and when you die that makes a part of the market just that simple john isn't this about person that was i was going to argument that maybe we should get burial insurance well no i don't know that that's that's completely different i think we're arguing is that every and every at some point in time your life you're part of our guy that's a guarantee that costs money or billions of dollars spent out of other people paying for somebody else's burial insurance like health health insurance is isn't this about personal responsibility all of us are going to go into the health care system at some point and there are going to be people who are going to die at some point too i know but isn't right isn't this about billions of dollars this is a considerable portion of our g.d.p. our economy that we're trying to address this is bankrupting our nischelle turner health care system. i don't know what are you how should evil or see people eat healthier that'll save money well i think we tried that and you know when michelle obama said that she wanted every all these men how american homer can see better republicans that you know you can't go telling people how to eat so i've been to the end of they wouldn't get what i said no hold on let me get let me win if you let me finish the job at the end of they would have boils down to sam is pretty

simple what it when it comes and there's no one with burial insurance because bill insurance is now is not a bill or it's habits paid for by the american people but when you go to the hospital you can't afford the bill the american people front the money for you so regardless of what happens the american taxpayers are paying for on insured workers and therefore if we can live we in the system that under the under the exchange of the president's created it will do two things one if you already have insurance already sitting on the bus additionally if you don't have insurance and you're under the and you're under a certain ceiling you the government would help you provide insurance for you if you don't have insurance in your budget ceiling and you should pay for insurance because and you have a house and don't have insurance and it's pay the bill john we have thirty seconds i'll give you the last word on that it's not granted in the federal government this is all great i mean i'm all for this as an individual i want to see people have health care i want to see people but here's the bottom line it's not authorized in the commerce clause and that's a lot of law here and medicare is authorizing the commerce clause the should be as well as just that some and it shouldn't be it was wrong that was a caseworker versus filbert eight hundred forty two and that all right as i said

that's what under the reagan administration and those are all the republican position since the security medicare they have not made no protest about right or pressure hopefully now to get change from now to hopefully not to be repaired or fresh air time drawn richard i think you made a good point there was i think our nation's better off with social security and medicare even though it was a president sent to make those set to make those things i guess quote a quote constitutional richer parents who has lost their. thank you but you're when the supreme court decided to take up the case of obamacare tom predicted that the law could be in jeopardy so we offered this alternative something we all need to think about as obamacare is well it could be in limbo right now. regardless of which way the high court tilts on the constitutionality of obamacare our nation is headed for a health care crisis impact with more than fifty million americans uninsured we're already in a crisis there's

a new kaiser report about health premiums and it's really it's really quite extraordinary this is the. they've increased one hundred thirteen percent since two thousand and one as you can see on this graph down here which means that they're going to be over thirty two thousand dollars by two thousand and twenty one this is with obamacare i mean the affordable care act it's political correct and so what are we going to do about this i mean this is an absolute screaming disaster that you know but there's you're going to more employers taking more people off the rolls here and more families having to spend twice as much or three times as much or in this case four times as much on their health care every year you're going to have more people unable to afford insurance in the united states you're going to have health care in america is basically going to turn into a hellish dysfunctional system not that it's not already there to a large extent compared to the other countries in the world speaking of the other countries of the world i think that that's really an important thing we need to have radical change in how we deliver health care in the united states the delivery

mechanism right now is the health insurance it's for profit health insurance companies that are skimming ten twenty thirty forty cents out of every dollar forty dollars out of every hundred dollars so that they can pay their c.e.o.'s hundreds of millions of dollars bill mcguire made over a billion dollars as the c.e.o. of united health care just about the same with stephen helmsley so right i mean this seems just fundamentally dysfunctional and u.s. needs to do with the rest of the world to successfully do it look at what we're getting for you know for the cording to the o.e.c.d. the organization of economic cooperation development these are the thirty four most developed nations or the money we're spending on health care is is absolutely a disaster and whatever. getting for there's life expectancy for example japan is it the numbers across the bottom seventy five eighty three years old japan's at the top they have a national health care system switzerland is number two they have a national health care system it's a little different than most countries not

a single payer system but it's a national system spain has a national health care system israel has a national health care system sweden luxembourg the united kingdom has a national health care system it's different from the rest of them in that it's genuinely socialist medicine that is to say in the u.k. or close to it in the u.k. the government actually owns the hospitals and clinics the rest of them are more like you know private clinics and things like that so there's a variety of ways to do this but they all have national health care systems ireland portugal even slovenia and here's the united states down at the bottom in terms of life expectancy and at the same time you get these guys around but we do something about the about social security because social security is going down in flames because we're about to run out of money and then infant mortality just perth thousand live births infant mortality this is incredible mexico the deaths per live births fairly high you know where you would expect this from a developing nation that has a real crisis and turkey is fairly high chile is fairly high and there's the

united states this is infant mortality now who's doing better than us in terms of in for more you zealots of the united kingdom australia know what's in common with all these countries. national health care systems musial of the united kingdom australia israel korea italy japan slovenia. it's time for us to say that health care is a basic human right that it's time for us to take health care out of this whole political nonsense of is a left is a right is it is that the free market or at the the the rest of the world has demonstrated a national health care system works when you start on the promise that health care is our right and not a privilege and that the government is there to guarantee those rights and make things work then you can have a health care system that works and that's what we need to do in the united states medicare part b. efore everybody just like everybody buy into medicare problem so. after the break

anderson international released a study this week founding of the united states is one of the top nations in the world that executing its own citizens so it would take away from the start it will never ever abolish the death penalty. you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so bleak you think you understand it and then you. see some

other part of it and realize that everything is ok. i'm sorry welcome to the big picture.